A technology of capturing, with a prescribed position as the center, pictures in all directions radiating from the prescribed positions at a plurality of visual points to generate an omnidirectional image by sequentially splicing (pasting) the pictures of the adjacent visual points has been generally widespread.
The omnidirectional image generated as described the above is able to be displayed as an arbitrary directional image observed at the prescribed position by specifying an arbitrary view angle.
Further, some conventional image processing apparatuses suggest a synthesis through an adjustment suitable for a minimization of a difference in shading between two pictures (See Japanese Laid-Open Patent No. Hei 11-102430, for instance).
By the way, the above omnidirectional image has presented a problem in that when a spliced portion is contained in a range of a specified view angle, for instance, in a case of no exact splicing of the edges of the respective pictures in the omnidirectional image, that is, an occurrence of a misalignment in the spliced portion, an execution of a display of the spliced portion suffering the misalignment causes an image giving a sense of inconsistency to a viewer to be displayed.
However, a method of confirming whether or not the splicing is in the process of being performed exactly is generally to apply, to all frames, a processing of performing the splicing while shifting, after a confirmation of all the spliced portions contained in one frame (one of 30 frames displayed in one second) with the eye, and further, there has been a problem that it takes much time to form the omnidirectional image through a correction of a misalignment width.